I think its pretty good, but a few weaknesses I spot:
-Scizor may be annoying to Hitmontop, but I should be ok
-Gliscor looks like a pain since I am forced to switch with Slowbro because of defensive versions with toxic
-nothing for CM Jirachi
-some versions of Volcarona can break through
-baton pass teams of course eat me, nothing to be done about that
-dugtrio support can eat Heatran, but with both Latias and Hitmontop I think I am ok with Genesect and Venusaur
-no pure counter for Hydregion
-magnezone support can be annoying
-deoxys-D offensive teams eat me

None of those are huge problems on the OU standard ladder, but still issues.

I was thinking maybe Roserade > Forretress to take on bulk waters even better and cleric support for Hitmontop so it can use rest, but that leaves me a bit weaker to dragons, so its a bit of a toss up.

It's a somewhat unusual take on rainstall (no chans/skarm) with scarftios thrown in to act as an incredible check for set-up sweepers of all kinds. Also really helps check genesect, as it can take them out after a couple switch-ins to rocks and gets a lot of surprise kills. Any suggestions?

Is there a way of laddering faster, because it seems unfair, like being punished for trying stall, that i finally 6-0 after 72 turns only to be rewarded with 4 points, while someone with a HO can have severval matches to my one, and clearly have more points?

You can run a more semistall team with only one dedicated offensive pokemon, it can pick of late game sweeps and at times outright sweep people. It is a good idea though to choose that one sweeper carefully to make sure it synergies with your team and is not stand alone. For example, Dragonite can effectively counter most Vensaurs, something which stall teams usually need.

Make sure you limit it to just that one pokemon or else you are running just a more defensive balanced team.

Doubles President

I'd even call two offensive Pokemon on a defensive team semi-stall, to be honest. Back in the first couple weeks of BW1 I used a team with a big defensive core of Bronzong/Heatran/Slowbro/Amoonguss and ended up with Scarf Infernape for revenge killing and Thundurus-T to clean up lategame. I only used Infernape when I had just killed something and needed to scout or when something like Volcarona (FUCK THAT THING) tried to set up, and Thundurus-T almost never showed up before the end. I just used the core.

Moves that boost offensive stats are banned (Dragon Dance, Calm Mind, etc). The only exception is the offensive Pokemon you are allowed to use. You can still run a defensive Pokemon with Calm Mind, Dragon Dance or other such moves, but it will be counted as your offensive Pokemon.

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Now that this is done let's see what we have here...

@Scarfwynaut

The CM Jirachi weakness is very big to overlook imo. The easier change you could do is use Bulldoze over Protect in order to at least 2HKO Jirachi's Subs. With some Atk EVs you can also have a decent chance to OHKO the subs, so take a damage calculator and do your math.

Also if you want to run Hitmontop, definitely run Foresight, one of the main reasons to use it anyway. Without Foresight, every simple spinblcoker laughs at you, meaning that you lose against Deo-D + Gengar offense, any kind of stall with a spinblocker, and against Sand teams with Jellicent. And get rid of HJK, you are just asking for a miss or a ghost type to come in and waste your life. If you don't like CC go with Revenge, but i wouldn't advice it. It seems that your team would benefit quite a lot from cleric support. This would free a moveslot on Latias, and give you a way to take status in general, as almost all of your pokes are susceptible to some kind of status.

Ok here is an idea... Try Physically Defensive Celebi over Ferrothorn with a moveset of Giga Drain / Perish Song / Heal Bell / Recover and Physically Defensive Skarmory over Slowbro, with a moveset Spikes / Brave Bird / Whirlwind / Roost and Shed Shell. Also give to Hitmontop this moveset: Revenge / Foresight / Rapid Spin / Rest or Toxic. Change Refresh to Roar on Latias so you can beat CM Reuniclus and other CM users, as Refresh is not needed with Heal Bell support. Finally because Genesect + Dugtrio is very popular atm, i would also advice the use of Shed Shell over Leftovers on Heatran, alongside Rest over Protect for recovery.

With the new changes you are not weak to Genesect + Dugtrio, or to DragMag teams. Physically defensive Celebi alongside Hitmontop does a fine job of countering Terrakion. SubSD sets lose to Hitmontop, as without LO (which is rare), they can't OHKO after Intimidate and you OHKO back, and Band sets are dealt by Celebi as long as SR is off the field (and you always have Top to fall back). Heal Bell is godlike for your team as it allows Top to use Rest, as well as Latias to use Roar or Reflect, and generally makes your team function better. Celebi also counters SubCM Jirachi, which is sweet, and generally Perish Song is a lifesaver against many boosters, such as Reuniclus, SubDD Gyarados, and many others. Celebi and Skarmory counter any Gyarados set. Skarmory counters Scizor, which was a problem before, so this is nice too. Celebi comes into Gyarados as it uses DD, then Celebi uses Perish Song as Gyarados uses Bounce, then you go to Skarmpry, etc etc.

@Kidogo

Congrats on the peak, and i love you for using Celebi, especially without a Grass move, which many people think as a blasphemy lol. Anyway the team seems pretty good, but i have two minor changes to suggest. Toxic > Protect every day on Tentacruel. How are you going to beat Jellicent otherwise? And Thunder > Psyshock on Latios imo. Psyshock is used for what? Keldeo is dealt by Celebi and Tentacruel, and Terrakion is dealt with Surf in rain. Breloom is killed by DM and you have Celebi anyway. I guess outside of rain Psyshock is nice for Terrakion, but this seems too situational, not to mention that Terrakion will probably have lowered his defenses with CC anyway. Thunder has the same BP as Psyshock, but way better coverage, hitting Starmie, Jelicent, Gyarados and Poltioed for super effective damage, and many times allows you to clean up weakened rain teams. Just something to consider. Good luck, and keep the good job!

Signing up again with a different team.
Pokemon Showdown! Username:lokt
Hall of Fame Standing:n/a
Current Ladder Standing on Pokemon Showdown!: lokt5
Can someone comment on my current team? I am considering changing cresselia's moveset to a cm set and swapping out dragonite for skarmory. I want to add a spinblocker and spiker somehow while still covering most threats.

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The CM Jirachi weakness is very big to overlook imo. The easier change you could do is use Bulldoze over Protect in order to at least 2HKO Jirachi's Subs. With some Atk EVs you can also have a decent chance to OHKO the subs, so take a damage calculator and do your math.

Also if you want to run Hitmontop, definitely run Foresight, one of the main reasons to use it anyway. Without Foresight, every simple spinblcoker laughs at you, meaning that you lose against Deo-D + Gengar offense, any kind of stall with a spinblocker, and against Sand teams with Jellicent. And get rid of HJK, you are just asking for a miss or a ghost type to come in and waste your life. If you don't like CC go with Revenge, but i wouldn't advice it. It seems that your team would benefit quite a lot from cleric support. This would free a moveslot on Latias, and give you a way to take status in general, as almost all of your pokes are susceptible to some kind of status.

Ok here is an idea... Try Physically Defensive Celebi over Ferrothorn with a moveset of Giga Drain / Perish Song / Heal Bell / Recover and Physically Defensive Skarmory over Slowbro, with a moveset Spikes / Brave Bird / Whirlwind / Roost and Shed Shell. Also give to Hitmontop this moveset: Revenge / Foresight / Rapid Spin / Rest or Toxic. Change Refresh to Roar on Latias so you can beat CM Reuniclus and other CM users, as Refresh is not needed with Heal Bell support. Finally because Genesect + Dugtrio is very popular atm, i would also advice the use of Shed Shell over Leftovers on Heatran, alongside Rest over Protect for recovery.

With the new changes you are not weak to Genesect + Dugtrio, or to DragMag teams. Physically defensive Celebi alongside Hitmontop does a fine job of countering Terrakion. SubSD sets lose to Hitmontop, as without LO (which is rare), they can't OHKO after Intimidate and you OHKO back, and Band sets are dealt by Celebi as long as SR is off the field (and you always have Top to fall back). Heal Bell is godlike for your team as it allows Top to use Rest, as well as Latias to use Roar or Reflect, and generally makes your team function better. Celebi also counters SubCM Jirachi, which is sweet, and generally Perish Song is a lifesaver against many boosters, such as Reuniclus, SubDD Gyarados, and many others. Celebi and Skarmory counter any Gyarados set. Skarmory counters Scizor, which was a problem before, so this is nice too. Celebi comes into Gyarados as it uses DD, then Celebi uses Perish Song as Gyarados uses Bounce, then you go to Skarmpry, etc etc.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the review man, its appreciated, again I haven't played because I am busy, (at this moment I am procrastinating). So this is all theorymon.

I honestly do not feel that CM Jirachi is a big enough threat to worry about to change my whole team. Your suggestion or a beller has persuaded me to to use shed shell heatran and Roserade with giga drain / rest / spikes / aromatherapy once I get started, cleric support would be great and Heatran is already expendable. I am also considering foresight on Hitmontop, I love high-jump kick to death though, the power is so worth the risk. Ill probably run substitute on Latias to win one on one still with bulky waters and Blissey, plus I don't get raped by Scizor.

I really don't want to run shed shell Skarm to deal with pretty much dragons all by itself, Hitmontop can't kill them if skarm goes down, regularly skarm has enough trouble due to their work arounds, but without leftovers it just ends up dieing. Hitmontop should with with Scizor well enought. I would rather lose to CM Jirachi, something about as common as Darmanitan, than regular dragons.

I got to 1993 Glicko2 and 88th on the ladder. I had really smooth sailing at first but started running into a lot of difficulties when I got higher up on the ladder. I definitely struggled much more with this stall team than I ever did in Gen 4 or in other Gen 5 tiers. I'll probably keep laddering to get a little higher.

Questions:

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- What are the roles of Pokemon that were essential to your stall team's success? Rapid Spinner, Physical Wall, Hazard Setter, etc. Hazard setter was crucial. I relied on hazards to wear down most threats, especially ones that I couldn't status. Roserade was very especially useful in this regard. Having a toxic spikes absorber was also very, very useful. Finally, a revenge killer was crucial to this team. A strong and fast offensive presence was necessary to beat threats that I couldn't take down via other measures.

- What was the most useful Pokemon in your team and why? You can also talk about defensive cores here.
This is very hard for me to answer as each pokemon was essential. However, Kyurem was probably the overall most useful. If the other team was weak to toxic spikes and Kyurem got a sub up then it was game over. He was decidedly less useful against teams that weren't weak to toxic spikes, but even then his fantastic bulk and good type coverage saved my ass many a time.

- What were the biggest threats to your stall team, and how you dealt with them? Wow so many huge threats I don't even know where to begin. Here are some of the biggest ones I noticed:
-Powerful dragon attacks: I had nothing to absorb dragon attacks except for Genesect and he was usually 2hkod by them so its not like he was reliable. Residual damage was the key to defeating these pokemon. If I could get them poisoned or burned and maybe a few hits of stealth rock or spike damage as well, then I stood a shot at surviving even a very powerful assault with my team more or less intact. Donphan was crucial in this endeavor thanks to his great defense and ice shard. In addition, Genesect could typically revenge kill dragons stuck in outrage (except for Kyurem-B. Thank God he's not common yet).
- Bulky set up sweepers that could deal with status: This includes things like Sub CM Latias, CM Reuniclus, BU Scrafty, and BU Conkeldurr. Fortunately most of these aren't too common. All of these can be forced out by Politoed, but actually killing them was much more difficult. CM Reuniclus I'd usually beat with Jellicent, BU Conkeldurr I'd status then switch around a few turns to wrack up damage, then finish it off with Jellicent. Scrafty and Latias were much more difficult. I usually lost when I faced them unless my opponent fucked up and allowed me to kill them with Genesect.
-Gengar: Gengar was a huge pain in the ass, although not as bad as the last two pokemon I mentioned. Fortunately, Roserade could use Gengar as set up fodder, but to actually kill it I would need to weaken it until it was in Genesects KO range.

- Did you find it easy or difficult to build a successful stall team? Explain why.
This team was easy to build, but I'm not sure if I would classify it as "successful". Building a team that did a better job at covering the aforementioned threats would I'm sure have been very difficult.

- How did you reach the Hall of Fame? Was it easy or difficult? Did having a stall team benefit you? What advice would you give to those laddering with stall teams?
It was pretty difficult for me. I think it would have been much easier if I had more offensive presence on my team and turned it into more of a balanced or semi-stall team. Some advice: sometimes with stall it's easy to play on autopilot. In BW2 you absolutely cannot get away with this. There are far too many offensive pokemon that will eat you alive if you just try to wall everything. Every move has to be carefully planned out and you need to think several stages in advance.

Edit: can someone change my quote on the front page to just say "especially useful" instead of "very especially useful"? I don't want to come off sounding like an imbecile haha

Moderator

Cmurph, your team doesn't seem to have a lot to take out opposing stall teams, especially rain stall. Ferrothorn in particular seems very troubling, as it looks like your only option is to PP stall gyro ball, which may not be that difficult to do, but still. I'd suggest using a Choice Scarf Terrakion over Genesect, as I don't believe that genesect has the resistances that would be useful for a stall team. On the other hand, Terrakion can switch into a bit more than just psychic and lol poison, and gives a handy fighting-type nuke to the team. For a rain stall team, Genesect's coverage just doesn't seem to look very appealing to me. Moxiemence could also be a big problem, unless Donphan can OHKO it. Genesect is a bit inferior to some others in revenge killing, especially if your rain goes down and it loses thunder.

Cmurph, your team doesn't seem to have a lot to take out opposing stall teams, especially rain stall. Ferrothorn in particular seems very troubling, as it looks like your only option is to PP stall gyro ball, which may not be that difficult to do, but still. I'd suggest using a Choice Scarf Terrakion over Genesect, as I don't believe that genesect has the resistances that would be useful for a stall team. On the other hand, Terrakion can switch into a bit more than just psychic and lol poison, and gives a handy fighting-type nuke to the team. For a rain stall team, Genesect's coverage just doesn't seem to look very appealing to me. Moxiemence could also be a big problem, unless Donphan can OHKO it. Genesect is a bit inferior to some others in revenge killing, especially if your rain goes down and it loses thunder.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll try it, although I'm a little wary of losing my one and only steel type (frail as he may be). As for Ferrothorn, it actually wasn't much of an issue. Gyro Ball is very easy to pp stall with Kyurem thanks to pressure, and Roserade and Donphan can both use it as set up fodder.

Moderator

Thanks, I'll try it, although I'm a little wary of losing my one and only steel type (frail as he may be). As for Ferrothorn, it actually wasn't much of an issue. Gyro Ball is very easy to pp stall with Kyurem thanks to pressure, and Roserade and Donphan can both use it as set up fodder.

Click to expand...

As a "defensive typing", Bug/Steel is kind of terrible. It doesn't have notable resists to much, and has a lack of weaknesses instead. I'd be focusing on resistances when using a stall team, because no matter how few weaknesses genesect has, it's not going to be switching in on a neutral move. IMO terrakion just gives a bit more necessary speed to the table, as well as an offensive way to be opposing steels and/or aeromatherapy chansey outside of pp stalling. Very defensive strategy, which I really like. SubRoost Kyurem seems to be pretty darn useful if you can keep rocks away.

Also, in accordance with the new rules, what does ditto fall under? If he is run using max HP and Speed, is he still counted as an offensive pokemon, or a defensive one?

I got to 1993 Glicko2 and 88th on the ladder. I had really smooth sailing at first but started running into a lot of difficulties when I got higher up on the ladder. I definitely struggled much more with this stall team than I ever did in Gen 4 or in other Gen 5 tiers. I'll probably keep laddering to get a little higher.

Questions:

Hide(Move your mouse to the hide area to reveal the content)Show HideHide Hide

- What are the roles of Pokemon that were essential to your stall team's success? Rapid Spinner, Physical Wall, Hazard Setter, etc. Hazard setter was crucial. I relied on hazards to wear down most threats, especially ones that I couldn't status. Roserade was very especially useful in this regard. Having a toxic spikes absorber was also very, very useful. Finally, a revenge killer was crucial to this team. A strong and fast offensive presence was necessary to beat threats that I couldn't take down via other measures.

- What was the most useful Pokemon in your team and why? You can also talk about defensive cores here.
This is very hard for me to answer as each pokemon was essential. However, Kyurem was probably the overall most useful. If the other team was weak to toxic spikes and Kyurem got a sub up then it was game over. He was decidedly less useful against teams that weren't weak to toxic spikes, but even then his fantastic bulk and good type coverage saved my ass many a time.

- What were the biggest threats to your stall team, and how you dealt with them? Wow so many huge threats I don't even know where to begin. Here are some of the biggest ones I noticed:
-Powerful dragon attacks: I had nothing to absorb dragon attacks except for Genesect and he was usually 2hkod by them so its not like he was reliable. Residual damage was the key to defeating these pokemon. If I could get them poisoned or burned and maybe a few hits of stealth rock or spike damage as well, then I stood a shot at surviving even a very powerful assault with my team more or less intact. Donphan was crucial in this endeavor thanks to his great defense and ice shard. In addition, Genesect could typically revenge kill dragons stuck in outrage (except for Kyurem-B. Thank God he's not common yet).
- Bulky set up sweepers that could deal with status: This includes things like Sub CM Latias, CM Reuniclus, BU Scrafty, and BU Conkeldurr. Fortunately most of these aren't too common. All of these can be forced out by Politoed, but actually killing them was much more difficult. CM Reuniclus I'd usually beat with Jellicent, BU Conkeldurr I'd status then switch around a few turns to wrack up damage, then finish it off with Jellicent. Scrafty and Latias were much more difficult. I usually lost when I faced them unless my opponent fucked up and allowed me to kill them with Genesect.
-Gengar: Gengar was a huge pain in the ass, although not as bad as the last two pokemon I mentioned. Fortunately, Roserade could use Gengar as set up fodder, but to actually kill it I would need to weaken it until it was in Genesects KO range.

- Did you find it easy or difficult to build a successful stall team? Explain why.
This team was easy to build, but I'm not sure if I would classify it as "successful". Building a team that did a better job at covering the aforementioned threats would I'm sure have been very difficult.

- How did you reach the Hall of Fame? Was it easy or difficult? Did having a stall team benefit you? What advice would you give to those laddering with stall teams?
It was pretty difficult for me. I think it would have been much easier if I had more offensive presence on my team and turned it into more of a balanced or semi-stall team. Some advice: sometimes with stall it's easy to play on autopilot. In BW2 you absolutely cannot get away with this. There are far too many offensive pokemon that will eat you alive if you just try to wall everything. Every move has to be carefully planned out and you need to think several stages in advance.

Click to expand...

I think your team is illegal for this challenge. You need at least 5 pokemon that have invested at least 460 evs in their defenses/hp. You have Kyurem and Genesect that do not comply with this. That makes it 4 pokemon that have the required amount of defense evs; 5 pokemon are needed.

This looks like a pretty dam cool team. I would love to know how it is working of for you. Personally I think Vensaur is probably a better sweeper here, so it would be cool to be proven wrong and to find out what niche lilligant has.

Now let's discuss about the new offensive titan that was introduced in OU the last days, Kyurem-B. What are your thoughts about it? Does it make stall teams even more unviable, or it can be handled relatively easy. What sets trouble you the most, and what sets are the ones that you encountered the most? Finally do you find its mixed sets more dangerous than other notorious wallbreakers, such as Hydreigon or Salamence, or easier to deal with?

From my experience in the ~15 games that i played against him with my stall team, he was kind of tough to deal with, but manageable. Gyarados, Forretress, and Gliscor all made sure that the choiced sets didn't break through my team, but i have yet to face a single mixed set, thankfully. I have seen a few SubD-Tail sets with Hone-Claws or Fusion Bolt, but i have Perish Song Celebi to deal with them.

I only saw 2 Kyurem-B while using my stall team, and they were both really difficult to deal with. The first was just an all-out attacker set using Life orb on a mag/drag team. It cleanly 2hko's Skarmory with fusion bolt and nothing else on my team could take an outrage. The other one I fought was a sub dragon tail set. I was only able to deal with it because I forced it out with a perish song and was able to set up t-spikes, eventually whittling its hp down.

I guess I'll move my discussion questions here so people are more likely to see them.

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- What are the roles of Pokemon that were essential to your stall team's success? (Have gotten rid of Vaporeon for Politoed).

Politoed- Rain inducer. Politoed ensures that I don't get wrecked by opposing sun teams. It also allows Tentacruel to become very difficult to wear down in the rain.

Chansey- Special Wall/Stealth Rocks/Cleric. Pink blob. Walls special threats and can deal with weak physical attackers as well. I use heal bell on it to get rid of burns on Tentacruel and Politoed. I forewent Toxic since Dusclops is able to deal with Latias at least until I can toxic it (assuming the sub cm set, otherwise it's even easier), at which point either Chansey or Quagsire can finish it off.

Tentacruel- Spinner/Toxic Spikes. Tentacruel is one of the most important pokemon on my team, keeping hazards off the field. It's especially useful against Sand teams, which often don't carry a grounded poison type.

Skarmory- Spikes/Phazer/Physical wall. Honestly, Skarmory is the best of a bad situation. With the introduction of Kyurem-B, Skarmory has even more trouble walling physical threats. It's 2hko'd by max attack variants, regardless of whether or not it's even running CB. It loses to most Terrakion variants, only beating Scarf. Playing against drag mag teams becomes a series of 50/50 predictions that are much worse for me than my opponent.

Quagsire- Set up counter. I like Quagsire. It deals well with dragon dancers (notably salamence and gyarados, who skarmory can struggle with) and calm mind jirachi, who can be a bitch for stall to fight. It's role is kinda niche, but it fulfills it well.

Dusclops- Spinblocker. Probably the only reason I decided to even participate in the project. Being able to keep hazards on the field is even more important now for stall than it used to be. In the past, rain stall could get away with not running a spin blocker because it often had more opportunities to set up and harass the opponent, but that isn't the case anymore. Dusclops is able to spinblock both starmie and tentacruel. Hydro pump from Starmie fails to 2hko in the rain, and it runs out of pp after 4 uses due to pressure. Tentacruel can do nothing at all to it. - What was the most useful Pokemon in your team and why? You can also talk about defensive cores here.

Dusclops easily. against teams that didn't have a grounded poison type, being able to ge and keept toxic spikes on the field was frequently what determined whether or not I could win the match.

- What were the biggest threats to your stall team, and how you dealt with them? Sableye on other weather teams was hell to face. If I couldn't poison it, I often lost. Fortunately it isn't very common. I didn't face any, but baton pass teams would be difficult to play around unless they were retarded and let their Mr. Mime die. I'm guessing a well-played Roserade/Jellicent core would be hard to play against, but I didn't see any.

- Did you find it easy or difficult to build a successful stall team? It's a completely standard rain team aside from dusclops, which I decided to use after seeing someone else use it.

- How did you reach the Hall of Fame? Was it easy or difficult? Did having a stall team benefit you? What advice would you give to those laddering with stall teams?

It was easy. Most of the people on the ladder are bad. I'm 35-7 with the team, and 4 of those losses were from unfortunate crits. I wouldn't say it benefited me. It's a good team, but I feel like I just have to work harder to achieve what a Deoxys-D offense teams achieves with very little effort. As much as I hate to say it, I would say don't even bother. I've always loved stall, but there's really no reason to run it over offensive teams anymore. As I and a few others have demonstrated, succeeding with stall is doable, but why put more work into winning than you have to?

@Magma- That looks like a really cool semi-stall team. It would be nice to see you have success with it.

Moderator

I just find kyurem kind of stupid. Hyper offense gets a nice new toy to demolish stall, because of the reasoning that its easily ouclassed and that hazards can destroy it. Personally I find getting hazards up against a hyper offense team is extremely difficult if they lead with taunt deoxys-d